An attempt at scrimshaw

[fast14riot]

I've always been intrigued by scrimshaw, and being a sailor I am really drawn to it artistically. I have always sketched, and kept a sketch book with me for as long as I can remember. I finally decided to give it a shot. I'm not a real great artist or anything, but I enjoy my work and that's all I do it for.

I took one of my large sail repair needles and sharpened it to a very sharp point and loaded it into a 2mm lead holder. I have a stack of acrylic sheets I use for scales on my straight razors, so I grabbed a white one. I didn't lay out a drawing or anything first, just kinda started. Once I figured out how to best make lines, I just started sketching. Well, it turns out that a triangular shaped needle is not ideal for this work, the scribe tends to wander as a flat edge catches and goes off course. I will make a new one from a broken drill bit.

So after I got some lines in the plastic, my next step was to color it. I tried India ink (FAIL), permanent fountain pen ink (FAIL), sharpie (FAIL), and testors acrylic model paint (semi-FAIL). The India nd FP inks just beaded up on the plastic and didn't collect in the scratches at all. The sharpie did cover well, but again didn't stick in the lines well either. The acrylic paint covered very well, so well in fact that I couldn't buff it off and thought I was stuck with a big black smear on my plastic

Some isopropanol eventually took the paint off and I realized I was "denting" the plastic in places rather than cutting a line in, so nothing would stick in it. I resharpened my scribe carefully and went back over it. The lines looked better, but now I was still stuck trying to color them. A quick youtube search and I found I should apply the paint and keep buffing until it is dry and most all of it will be off the piece. Of all things, a white plastic eraser worked the best to remove the rest of the overage of paint.

So here is my feeble first attempt at scrimshaw, I hope to be able to add it to a knife someday and plan to keep practicing at it. Maybe I will polish up some antler and see how it goes compared to the acrylic.

Also, I would love to hear from Travis Fry to see how his scrimshaw journey is going, I remember he asked about it some time back and I haven't seen him post in a while.

Any and all comments are more than welcome, of course! Including some of the old curmudgeons


-Xander

 

[Frank Niro]

Antler can be a tough thing to work on since it's quite a pourous material. Plain paper micarta will probably work a lot better. Frank

 

[fast14riot]

Thanx for the tip Frank! I will have to pick some up. I just happened to have a bunch of small tines laying around and figured why waste my walrus ivory practicing.


-Xander

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

If you scrim a porous surface, you have to fill the pores first. Use thin CA to seal the area and then sand it smooth, repeat a few times. Test with a little drop of ink and see if it will all rub off or if any penetrates. If the surface won't seal sufficiently, the material isn't suitable. Antler can be a difficult material. Ivory works best, but is pricier. Any non-porous material will work as long as it is hard enough. Paper Micarta, synthetic ivories, hard plastic, etc. Old piano keys are great for small inlay work and practice. A piano repair shop may give you a few. Keep an eye out and you may score a whole piano's worth on trash day.

 

[tryppyr]

Xander, if you ever feel like practicing on ivory drop me a line. I have some scrap pieces that would work wonderfully for inlay, and I have no use for them so you're welcome to them.

 

[fast14riot]

Thank you Stacy! I had a small scrap of walrus I polished up real quick to test out and it has a whole different feel to it than the acrylic, much smoother cutting.

Greg, we'll be in touch soon! Thank you!


-Xander

 

[fast14riot]

Ok, so I fashioned up a new scribe from a broken HSS drill bit. Not having a metal lathe made it difficult, I ended up chucking the soon to be scribe in my dremel and put a fresh 120# belt on the 1x30, turn the dremel on and hold it against the running grinder. Worked well! I managed to get a steep enough angle on the point and to keep it from breaking easily I put a step in it so it wasn't such a long taper. Some 600# paper against it while in the dremel polished it right up.

This new scribe point is so much easier to control direction than the three sided needle I used first! So being the hard headed person I am, I tested just a couple lines with it and then sketched out an ambitious project! Its roughly 2.5" square, not terribly detailed, but is a significant projct for me. It is of the T.S. Californian, the tall ship I sailed on when I was 18 as a bosuns mate/watch captain.

So I cut out the sketch and taped it to my sheet of plastic. I am outlining the major shapes by the bulino method, basically a bunch of tiny dots really, really close together. Once I get the basic shape done I will remove the sketch and then connect the dots creating solid lines.

I hope this isn't seen as an instructional thread, as I stated in the beginning, these are my first attempts. I have been reading up on scrimshaw for several months and watching videos trying to get a good basic understanding of the process before I put the scribe to work. I am merely keeping this as a public journal of my travels into and through the process. All are welcome to comment, good or bad, present tips, ideas or solutions at anytime in this. With the amount of amazingly talented craftsmen on here I hope to learn at least a little bit from some, and hope this thread can help or inspire someone else in the future.


Thanx for looking.

-Xander

 

[quint]

Looks cool so far, I have wanted to try it out but have about 2 too many hobbies as it is and this is one of those things like engraving takes alot of time to really get good at it. Looking forward to see your progression.

 

[fast14riot]

Thanx! I may not work on this particular project every chance I get, I plan to do smaller ones more often as continual training. As with my sketching, I often am not in the right frame of mind to sit and do this work, having a 3 year old really doesn't make it any easier! I tried grinding and making knives during my late nights, but the wife complains about the noise, so having something I can sit down and do inside is nice. Let's see where this goes!


-Xander

 

[fast14riot]

Well, after a few beers I didn't want to work on my ship project, so I drew up a quick caricature (that I am sure fits some of the people around here) and scratched it out. It came out halfway decent, except that it kind of looks like Rick M

-Xander

P.S. Greg (Trypper) I got the ivory you sent me, thank you!

 

[Travis Fry]

I apologize for resurrecting an old thread, but I just found it today. I was, just out of curiousity, doing a google image search on my own knives, just to see what comes up, and I saw one of the pictures here. I figured since Xander mentioned me by name wondering how my scrimshaw was going, I ought to reply even though this thread is old.

To answer quickly, it isn't going really at all. I spent some time on the phone with Linda Karst Stone, read a good bit, had some good conversations with some good folks, and even got some tools in order, but I never did much scratching. The reasons for this are many, and pretty much the same as the ones explaining why I've not been making a lot of knives. House remodel, CPA exam studies (long past me now, but they ate up almost 2 years of spare time), travel, work, parenting, etc, etc., ad nauseum.

I also realized during my detour toward drawing that I simply like making knives better than I like more traditional art media. I'll probably learn to engrave some time, and after having spent an hour or two playing with a GRS engraving machine a while back, I fully intend to persue that. Those setups are pricey though, and a new grinder, a better kiln, a forge or 3, hydraulic press, surface grinder, mill, lathe, etc., all come before engraving equipment on the "things I plan to spend money on" list.

SO, belatedly, thanks for asking. I'd have replied sooner had I seen this, and I appreciate being thought of.